Deep Wounds
by Silver Blazen
Summary: Post: Age of Ultron. Steve and Natasha try to extract the pain, as they search beyond their hidden scars.


**Deep Wounds**

 **Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Studios**

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"Come on solider, walk it off. It's just a graze…Nothing you can't handle," the resilient, honorable commander of the Avenger's grimaced against the fiery sting of pain pulsing from his bandaged thigh. Seated at the side of his bed, he nursed his throbbing leg while tentatively exercising it back into function.

He had been shot, stabbed, crushed and winded many times in his warring life, but ever since he was given the gift of enhanced healing by Dr. Erskine's serum decades ago, periods of recuperation were short and rare between missions.

Steve never took the gift he'd been given for granted, nor used it for anything other than serving the cause of liberty and justice; but to say he was anything but content with himself at the moment would be an overstatement. "Amateur...Lousy amateur," he shrugged with vexation, the strenuous force on his injured limb sparked a bloom of heat upon his flesh.

After his eighth attempt to raise himself up off the bed, under his own power, his pores were now leaking rivulets of perspiration down across his half-naked torso. The embers of defiance within him were threatened by a gust of exertion.

His lungs cried for fresh air once his contained breath began to subside. He couldn't be certain, but if he were a guessing man, he would say his complexion was as purple as the bruises he'd sustained in the field. 'You can do this, soldier. On your fee—" A jolt of fire moved up from his wounded leg until it struck his most sensitive of nerves; it felt no different from the bullet that pierced him hours ago. Finally, his body could take no more and Steve hazardously crashed to the floor on his knees. A strangled groan broke past his tightly sealed lips while the veins and nerves in his muscular throat emerged like roots to a tree.

"…Bad idea." The captain closed his azure orbs with a defeated sigh, resting his head against the edge of the bed. The gloom of despair hung on his shoulders that glistened with a misty sweat. The pounding of his own pulse in his ears deafened the cold silence within his quarters and the panting of his own lungs. He couldn't help but feel a measure of disappointment in himself; Steve knew that if General Phillips were still alive he'd be the first to voice the disparity of the situation; the Great Captain America benched by a simple gunshot wound to the leg.

He had endured worst in the past and never needed to be cleared for duty…perhaps because his injuries always occurred during an inconsequential time…or perhaps because he had been lucky. _'Stow that talk,'_ he chided himself, ' _just…get back up…you can do this._ ' Steve squared his jaw and raised his head. For a short yet sufferable moment, he found himself once again back at Camp Lehigh, climbing that obstacle rope that looked as easy as blinking, but harder than running.

Never had putting on a set of pants been so difficult for him. It would be an act of providence if he managed to don the rest of his uniform. Once the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears had evaporated, Steve made a second attempt at raising himself up onto his feet. He concentrated his weight on his good leg, feeling the burn of his muscles that were hard as rock. A faint smile crossed his perspired features in the face of his small victory.

He set his eyes upon the remainder of his Captain America ensemble. He shouldn't have nearly as much trouble getting the rest of it on. Meticulously he picked up the star-emblazoned top and began to slips his arms into it…

His cell-phone began ringing off the night-stand. Steve rolled his eyes as the woefully familiar "Star Spangled Man" theme blared as his ringtone. The culprit was obvious. _'Really, Stark?'_ Steve groaned as he quickly retrieved his phone, eager to turn off that nightmarish tune. An exasperated sigh escaped him once he read the name off the caller ID. He already knew where this conversation was headed and he dreaded it.

"Yes, Dr. Wu? This is Captain Rogers," he answered with a forced cavalier tone.

"Hello, Captain Rogers. I'm calling to inform you that your x-rays have arrived and there doesn't appear to be any fractures in your thigh, although there appears to be extensive damage to your quadriceps muscle."

Steve felt a churning in his gut at the news. It explained why his leg hurt so much. He runs a hand through his hair, digesting the news. "I see. How soon can I be cleared for duty? The Avengers have a routine reconnaissance mission in Mandrapoor tonight."

"I'm afraid you'll either have to delay that mission, or assign someone else to lead it. We can't risk your ligament tearing open and exacerbating your condition," Dr. Wu informed in a detached clinical tone that pricked at Steve's nerves, but the super soldier maintained a controlled exterior. "With your accelerated healing, your injury should be mended by this time tomorrow."

"I…understand," Steve shrugged with an exasperated sigh. "…What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I can't stay in bed all day."

"Until your next checkup at noon tomorrow, you'll need to keep off your injured limb. I will have medical send you a pair of crutches if that will be satisfactory?"

Steve closed his eyes, still not quite accepting the situation and what it would entail him and the Avengers. The stubborn part of the soldier within him wanted to rebuff the doctor's prognosis and march back into the field with the strength and vigor that often carried him into battle. But logic held his tongue; as a team leader, he understood the gravity of his injury and how it might endanger not just himself but his teammates if he were to get hurt. He had to lead by example and that meant following the doctor's orders.

"Yes, that will be fine," he conceded. "…Is there anything else, doctor?"

"No, sir, that is all. See you tomorrow at noon. Good day." Steve didn't bother to give a farewell as he promptly ended the call and tossed his Starkphone onto the bed on top of the rest of his unworn uniform. The gloom of defeat now filled his entire being, engulfing him in its bitter fog. _'There just went my entire evening.'_ The leader of the Avengers sat at the edge of his bed and carefully drew his wounded leg up onto the comfortable mattress. The sting of pain had not abated, if anything it thrived with the increase of his blood pressure due to his frustration.

Steve resisted the urge to change out of the pants to his uniform or even remove his boots. The simple deed would make him feel even less useful than he presently was. He still had a job to do, even if it meant assigning someone else to do it for him right now. He looked towards his nightstand where he left his Avengers communicator he used to communicate with the team during field missions. The team would be suiting up in a few hours, but each member always wore them while on base.

His hand hovered above the small device fit for his ear; his brow furrowed against the unexplained yet familiar case file resting just beneath the communicator. The Winter Soldier file—procured by Natasha from her ex-KGB associates; the very file that Steve regularly traded with Sam Wilson in their side project to locate the ghost of what remained of his lost best friend. Steve lifted both the file and the communicator onto his lap—focusing on the sticky pasted on the front with Sam's handwriting on it.

 _"There was a sighting of him a week ago in Bavaria. Might be worth looking into." –Sam_

Steve released a shaky breath as he opened the folder, searching for Sam's update. It had been many months since they had found a lead on Bucky's whereabouts. The last place was the Smithsonian inside the Captain America/Howling Commandos exhibit. The trail went cold from there. Steve had been stunned to realize that Bucky…The Winter Soldier, had earned his given name as a ghost that could not be found—only glimpsed, for a short haunting moment before he disappeared.

Once he found Sam's latest update to the file, Steve once again felt heartbeat accelerate in his chest. Images taken from surveillance cameras inside a small port; the photographs showed a man of average height, yet considerably fit like an athlete, _'or a soldier.'_ He was dressed in a dark leather jacket and brown cargo pants. His long wolfish mane was tied into a ponytail concealed by a baseball cap secured over his head. Steve noted how the fabric of the man's clothing hugged his left arm more tightly than his right.

"Bucky…" He uttered softly, his intense gaze focused on the photo that presented the clearest angle of the ghost wearing the face of his best friend. His appearance had not changed much since he last saw him. Steve had thought it would get easier to see the cold and detached look in those once vibrant and friendly blue eyes—so full of life. But staring at them now, the Brooklyn son couldn't suppress the emotional tug inside of him.

Steve closed his eyes while ever so slowly closing the folder, shutting away the horror and tragedy that gnawed at him from within.

It was his fault that Bucky was like this; full of hatred, pain and confusion—a shell of the good man that was once kind, compassionate, friendly and a hero at heart. Bucky was more than a friend to Steve, he was a brother who long ago first saved his life at the pure innocent age of 12. Bucky was born a hero. He deserved better than the hand fate dealt him; he deserved the good happy life that he fought for—free of war and turmoil, and to live long into old age as his younger siblings did.

He'd been denied all of that because the great Captain America wasn't fast enough—sharp enough—to save him. As Steve rested his head back against the headboard of his bed, his inner turmoil began to breach the surface of his exterior. A tear escaped the corner of his eye as Bucky's screams played over and over again in his mind before the cold silence took him. The fear, the despair and the agony was like a knife to the heart. "I'm sorry, Buck…" He whispered quietly into the empty room.

He couldn't save Bucky. He couldn't even stop a gunshot wound from not letting him lead his team into the field. _'Some hero I've turned out to be,'_ he mused. Despite the emotional weight on his shoulders, Steve's sharp hearing perked up at the sound of bootsteps coming down the corridor outside his room. His eyes remained closed until a soft but purposeful rapping against the door drew him from his grim reverie. He hastily wiped the tear from his eye once a familiar alluring, but commanding voice addressed him.

"So, this how you're spending your Saturday night?" Natasha drawled with a teasing edge in her low voice; smirking darkly at his undaunted demeanor. She leaned unceremoniously against the doorway, causal and observant. Dressed in her one-piece black tactical suit, she invaded his personal space with a brazen glint in her teal eyes that held the cunning fire of the murderess glints of seduction. She trained her gaze, searching for the bare exposure of his pain through stray tresses of unruly scarlet.

She kept her distance for a moment, a haze of light outlined her hourglass figure and her weight swerved against the door, giving him a full view of her lethal, but practical visage. The blue trim highlights of her uniform reflected in the shadows as her lithe frame remained unpredictable and reserved. Her red gauntlets held flecks of light; her Widow Bites were active as Steve felt the lethal pulse infiltrate the air.

She was prepared for the mission; a gun-holster wrapped over her mid-thigh, two pistols, and electronic batons strapped against her belt that held her Black Widow insignia. She was lethal, stunning and-efficiently armed for battle.

Holding her guarded poise, Natasha registered the visage of the super-soldier laying back against the headboard near the edge of the mattress; leg propped up. The hard muscular planes and dips of his V shaped torso were exposed and slackened with a visible glaze of feverish sweat waxing over the broad sculpt. His flaxen blond hair was spiked with a natural wave, despite the remnants of ash latched onto a few stands.

He looked intimidating in the caress of shadows; his stoic and chiseled features held the aglow of light while his intense azure eyes stared passively at her like an impending storm with flickers of fierce energy.

Without waiting for an invitation from his lips, Natasha causally sauntered closer to the bed. She squatted down, intently regarding the marred flesh exposed under the dark navy-blue material. "How's the leg holding up?" she asked, in a leveled voice.

"Peachy," Steve responded quietly. He released a heavy sigh, his expression placid but the analytic Black Widow could immediately sense the sorrow and discontent emanating from him. A less than ideal thought when it came to Captain Steve Rogers, but now a more common occurrence since he woke up in this new century.

Steve was never the brooding type, but he had been doing much of it since he discovered not only was his whole world gone, but his best friend was still alive and working as a brainwashed assassin for Hydra, the very organization he had fought hard to defeat and eliminate so long ago, and now he had to contend with training and leading a new unit as the New Avengers. The hits hadn't stopped coming for him.

Steve settled his lidded eyes on Natasha, watching her with scrutiny as she had quietly closed the door to his room with close proximity as though her visit were secretive. Her scarlet red locks glowed beneath the warm light overhead while a twinkle gleamed in her teal eyes. A small smile, not quite reaching his eyes, formed on his lips.

"I take it you weren't sent by Dr. Wu to bring me crutches?" He lightly teased.

In response to his deriding clog of words that emitted from his throat, Natasha curved her lips into a rueful smirk. "So," she pressed, trying to evoke a reaction, to distract him from the pain that she clearly detected on his slacked and chiseled features. "I'm guessing that you're off duty tonight. It's a real shame..." she paused, allowing her low voice to hold a cool seductive edge as she leaned against the dresser.

Her stance was purposeful and elegant and her teal eyes brightened with an imploring of desire—she had the captain trapped in her web. "...because we're going to invade a little HYDRA party."

Steve's placid exterior crumbled at her coy remark. "I should be leading our next recon," if his side-lining injury did not put a dampener on Steve's attitude, the defeated quiver in his tone did the job. He could only imagine how pitiful he must look in Natasha's eyes; the world's first and only super-soldier unable to so much as pull himself out of bed, let alone lead a team in his condition. The evidence of his exertion gleamed in the light of his room as beads of sweat dripped down his neck and onto his sculpted torso.

"But it looks like Wu is determined to make sure I spend the night as Steve McQueen," he said with a small smile as he held a baseball in his hand, taken off the nightstand. His poor attempt at lightening the mood was merely met with a curious arch of the eyebrow from Natasha. "Yeah…Sam and I watched The Great Escape last night…" he clarified meekly, unsure of his point.

"I see that your pocketbook list is growing larger thanks to Sam's poor choices in classic war movies. Not to mention the long and boring ones that don't have the facts straight—but you would know since you lived behind the scenes and did the real gritty stuff." The scarlet haired assassin gave him a indignant smirk. "Isn't that right, Rogers?"

Steve lowered his eyes, the darkness of the past never forgotten only dimmed. A shaky sigh blew past his parted lips, his intense gaze focused on the baseball gripped in his fingers. "The gritty stuff is usually overlooked if not downplayed, but I can't imagine anyone that would appreciate the sights. Back in my day, the team was always on the move; never sat still long enough to get stir crazy. There was always a mission—never a moment to let it all sink in…" Azure blue orbs met intense grayish- green, "once it did, you began to ask yourself questions you really shouldn't."

His somber tone made no effort in concealing his inner struggle—with himself and whether or not he was actually the man—the soldier—the whole world thought he was. What were once moments of struggle and self-doubt had since become a reoccurring habit that festered like a sickness inside of him—granting him only unrest and shaking nightmares.

"Well, it's kind of hard to question yourself when you're living through a lie," she whispered, keeping herself distant. Her scarlet ringlets draped over the sharpened edge of her pale cheek, and her teal eyes caught the muted color of the lamplight barricading the shadows with a glow of warmth. She clutched the edge of the dresser with her half-gloved fingers, avoiding his piercing stare that held her reflection in the clearness of crystallized blue. She breathed, calmly, searching for her preventative resolve back into her elemental sanctuary of darkness.

Easing down the sting that intensively grew in her chest, Natasha leveled her guarded stare at him. "Sometimes that's the toughest way to live..."

Steve gave no response to that. Natasha's powers of perception were the sharpest among those he worked alongside with. She never bat an eyelash in the face of intimidation, and never kid herself about the way the world worked. A realist more than an idealist; a quality, to Steve, that was both a great strength and a great flaw when it came to the Russian assassin turned world hero. Since they began working together closely over a year ago, Steve didn't expect to come to rely on her as much as he did now.

Tonight would be no exception it seemed, he would need to rely on her again. "It looks like your gonna lead this op into Mandrapoor. Wu says I need to stay sidelined until tomorrow."

Natasha intently searched beyond the grayness of a resentful storm which had obscured in his hardened azure orbs. She clearly saw the weight of his internal guilt sagging in his broad shoulders, so much despair threatening to drown him.

Although, Steve had tried to reserve his resilient dominance over the pain, he was slowly becoming an emotional wreck. It wasn't the bullet wound that kept him locked in, she knew it was the constant reminder of his failure to save James Barnes. It was time for a different recourse of action. He needed a distraction.

Refusing to cling onto a thread of attachment, Natasha invaded his space with an imploring rhythmic sway of her jutting hips. There was a barrier of restriction between them. "What are your plans for tonight?" she asked with a seductive edge ghosting from her light pastel coated lips. "Watch another war movie that Sam put on your list?"

Steve sighed at her question. "I can think of worst things I'd do with my free time."

His dismal glinted eyes flicked down to the closed folder in his lap—an item that filled him with sorrow whenever he would read upon all the horrors subjected to Bucky over the years. Now that he was ordered to stay off his injured limb, the super soldier realized that tonight he might be left to another long night of reflection where guilt threatened to consume him, except this time he was without a punching bag to unleash his frustrations upon.

He could sense Natasha's piercing stare watching him closely, measuring his every move and the causal factors behind them. He set the folder aside as if it were a bad habit—in a way it was—and fixed his intense stare on her. A vain attempt at a smile formed across his lips as he looked at her in a way he hadn't for quite some time. "But there are better things that I can't ignore." His stare had not wavered from hers; their intensity rising like a storm.

Natasha chanced an unabashed glare into the severe chasms of azure, the begrudging sense of stability ignited within her veins. She had learned to trust in her commanding officer, but there was still a gap of uncertainty between them. After summoning up her collective poise, she inched closer to the bedside, her teal eyes instantly dropped onto the folder that had the Winter Soldier's star emblem printed in black ink.

"I can see that you're still looking for your ghost story," she pried insensitively, fighting against the resentment curling on her tongue, while looking affronted by his fractured expression of pure dejection. "Why can't you just let him go? I told you that if the Winter Soldier wants to be found, he'll come back to you, since his mission isn't over." She ended with a nonchalant shrug, masking her own vexations towards HYDRA's favored lap dog.

Steve exhaled tiredly at her mention of Bucky, or rather: The Winter Soldier, as she preferred to call him. Detached—resentful—distrustful. Steve knew Natasha had bad history with the former HYDRA assassin that also happened to be his best friend. Bucky had wounded her on numerous occasions, in more ways than one. There was no room for sentiment or trust—especially not for Bucky—in her personal web she allowed very few into.

Hearing no response coming from him, Natasha closed her eyes, and refused to give into his laden omission. "Look," she huffed out downbeatedly, unsure how to pursue her words.

Inside her heart clenched, and blood ran a glacial course through her veins as her addled mind became plagued with haunting images of torpid brutal eyes that held intense chasms of steel and icy azure. They seared through the cracks of the unbreakable walls she had concealed for herself to resist the brutal rages of torment reflected in his calculating, mechanical gaze.

He pulled the trigger on her a few times, but never aimed for her heart. "I know more about your best friend than what's written in that file..." Her voice tipped into a lower, regrettable timbre of bitter edges and repressed words. "It's not something you want to hear, Steve."

Steve's timorousness brushed away by a hardened exterior. His blue eyes blazed with a fierce discontent, but it was a fire that Natasha preferred to see in place of the absence of strength she had first observed when she entered his room. "The things I read in that file…" Steve began, but soon found himself without the will to continue further down this dark topic that he had yet to discuss with anyone—not even Sam. Being evasive with Natasha, he had come to learn, never stopped her from catching on in the long run. "…No one should have to go through…" he released with a disheartened sigh, "or enact."

He could feel the floodgates beginning to open and there was nothing to stop the pouring of his thoughts before the immovable Black Widow in front of him. "I'm sure there are a lot of things about The Winter Soldier I wouldn't want to hear about, but it's a burden I need to bear. After all…" His stare broke away from hers, the words dying on his tongue but living strong in his thoughts, 'Bucky wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for me.'

"Steve, I know what they've done to Barnes," she murmured in a distant voice, regret belied her confession. Her lips were poised as livid raged seared in her veins. For years, Natasha tried to bury the sins of her past into the darkness, but she knew that the nightmarish apparitions of torture: Vasily Karpov and Aleksander Lukin always haunted her when truth settled against her guarded heart. No more unfathomable lies or excuses to conceal the scars.

Tonight, the infamous Black Widow would finally embrace the rare and unabated chance of her valid redemption."In the Red Room, I was the only dancer who James trusted enough to reveal what had been extracted from him. Sometimes it's hard to tell just how deep the bullet lies..."

"Then you, Nat, of all people should realize why I can't just let him go," Steve pressed with a beseeching look, his azure blue orbs shimmering with pain long kept hidden beneath the amiable and impassive exterior he forged since emerging into this new era.

Natasha understood the darkness that Bucky had suffered, she experienced it and came back from it. That knowledge gave Steve hope that his friend was not beyond saving…but it didn't mean he was presently safe.

"Bucky is alone out there, confused and probably ready to pick a fight he can't win. Each day that goes by leaves him at the mercy of anyone that's gunning for the Winter Soldier for things he's done in the past…Things he would have never had to do if I—" Steve's throat clutched and his words remained trapped beneath his tongue. Determined, he forced them off the tip with a dismal shrug, "...if I had been able to save him…"

"Sometimes you can't save everyone, Steve," Natasha whispered vaguely, with a nonchalant tone, trying to become more reachable for him to understand about the censurable sins and executed brutal complexes of her traumatic past.

Unable to contain her limited emotions, Natasha held her resentful stare back onto the file and then she drew out a calm breath; reserves of buried pain suddenly grew evident in her teal irises. "When you think that you have a chance to stop the pain, it always comes back. That's what you feel, Steve. Everything that Bucky has done under the will of HYDRA is becoming a scar that grows deeper than a bullet wound."

A dry yet weak chuckle blew past Steve's lips; Natasha was always an astute observer. "Since becoming Captain America, I never took a bullet I couldn't shake off…" the tips of his calloused digits brushing across his stinging injury that kept him confined to his bed, "it took me awhile to realize that some wounds never heal, they fester until they're reopened …" His hand slipped to his side, away from the calamity that had brought him more pain than expected. His lidded gaze fell back onto Natasha as he rested his head back against the wall above the headboard.

"It's enough to remind me that despite what the world thinks, I'm still as human as the next guy. I'm not the hero they think I am…How can I begin to save everyone…if I couldn't even save Bucky?" Steve hated the self-pity in his voice; somehow he doubted Natasha had planned on coming to a pity party.

"Steve, you need to stop focusing on your regrets. Yank those threads off and move on," she replied, struggling to speak with coherent, bitter words raping oppressively against her throat. _Had he disarmed her?_ Immobilized her restless heart? He probably had. "That's all you can do, Rogers. We can't erase our errors and mistakes. That wouldn't make us human if we did, but we can learn from our past and clear the slate for our future. That we can do..."

Steve shrugged tiredly, his gaze distant as it traveled back to a moment not too long ago where he had been challenged with words instead of violence. "Sometimes I wonder if Stark is right about me…Maybe everything special about me came out of that bottle…" Steve was never one to doubt himself, he didn't have that luxury when he had the lives of so many people on his shoulders during the war. But since coming back, he had been given time to reflect on his shortcomings as a man, a solider—as Captain America.

Natasha stilled her incisive gaze, searching through the haze of darkness that kept the brilliant color of piercing azure from holding the flecks of light shining over their stiffed and urging bodies. She vaguely sensed that something profound had been stolen from him; not his enhanced strength, but there was the absence of hope.

No evident truth remained laden in his unwavering stare. She had to reach deeper. "What's really going on, Steve?" She delved with a husky edge of concern breaching her devoid of contempt emotion. "You're usually a little more open with me..." Silence greeted her observation, she could already sense him beginning to close off from her, "C'mon Rogers, spill the details," she implored.

Steve felt himself harden against her intuitiveness; suddenly feeling conscious of himself and how bare and vulnerable he had laid himself out to her in his condition—how off focus he had become. It was disconcerting as well as expectant once he considered the possibility of Natasha not understanding where he was coming from. The bitter chill of loneliness threatened to shroud him before he distanced himself with a squared jaw.

"Never mind, Agent Romanoff," he digressed with a formal tone, his Captain-like demeanor being restructured despite the glower of discontent in his azure orbs. There was nothing more he could tell her that he hadn't already. "You should go; since I'm benched you'll have to lead the team tonight." He all but dismissed her with a shrug.

She sighed, resisting the urge to leave him wallowing in the thralls of his unbidden guilt—the remnants of pain that he tried to bury through his unshakable defiance. Every moment she'd spent with him, defined another untainted piece of reason to become attached to humanity—to rebuild structures of a durable life.

The Черная Вдова: Black Widow had detached from her unbreakable weaves; crashing to the fractured walls, and slipping further into the echoes of the torturous past.

Natasha believed herself as a diminished illusion, a wayward ghost endlessly searching for a nameless grave to fall into, and she was tired of living in the afterlife; dangling on the tangled, unrelenting strings of her past—every disjointed piece of her scarred evanescence became corrupted by unavailing power of trust embodied inside a pure, accepting heart of a virtuous man.

She couldn't admit to adoration—love—even sentiment; not to the constant feeling to relish in the security and undeniable need of sharing a life with an equal partner who shielded her from the encroaching storms that were on the horizon.

Instead of responding to the nonchalance that wavered in his strained voice, Natasha detained her emotions and turned her back on him; sauntering purposely to the door; wanting to purge the barriers that enfolded against his heart, and the resentment he burrowed underneath.

She gripped the frame molding of the door with the clutch of her gloved hand, and fought against barrages of undercurrent tension. She couldn't let it reside. "Stop pretending that you're strong enough to face this alone, Steve," She momentarily spared him with a genuine concerned look. "I know how easy you can get lost in your past."

Steve inhaled slowly, his hardened exterior slowly softened despite the dourness that had built inside of him since before she first walked in. It was disconcerting as well as amazing to him that Natasha—a person so different and experienced from himself—could read him so well. The maelstrom of discontent had lingered and Steve was almost afraid that it would create a dark side to him that Stark didn't believe existed. Sympathy from Natasha Romanoff was as rare as oil; Steve didn't believe she expended it to people she didn't care about. A question lurked at the back of his thoughts for over a year now since their mission together in Washington—one that he didn't believe in asking then.

"You know a lot about me, Natasha. Given what you know and how dissimilar you feel we both are, let me ask you, 'why do you still follow my lead?' You could be taking orders from anyone on the government payroll…" Steve looked up at her with hapless eyes, "why me?"

Staring into his light, piercing Aegean eyes, Natasha felt her posture become rigid; defenses ignited in the moment he asked that complicated question. _'Why him?'_ She refused to answer. It was violation to allow someone to breach the depth of her scars. She had to keep the truth restrained.

With all her effort to hold back, the unconquerable, malevolent and self-reliant intelligencer couldn't find reasons for avoidance; despite feeling the cold mask of acceptance melting each moment she dared to gaze at his stoic countenance—carved with unspoken throes of unsettled grief. She felt the constant ebbs of tension rising in her veins, her heart pulsated with frantic impulses to run, but she remained momentarily, unexpectedly grounded.

"It's not that simple to say," she softly admitted, keeping her searching teal eyes firmly locked on the reversal of his tolerant expression. Unwarranted by trust reflecting in his blue eyes, she conceived the possible outcomes of her admission. "The truth is I have great respect for you. Sometimes it's not as tolerable as a simple lie, but given the right circumstances it feels good to know that I will always have someone there to pull me out..."

She froze for a moment, staring at the remnants of scarring embedded over her wrist. The marred skin was harsh—a bitter reminder of her survival, and her endurance in resurrecting her perennial existence from the merciless, shadowy fathoms of the Red Room. " ...even if the monster ever breaks loose."

Steve frowned at her comment but the softness in his gaze indicated he wasn't at all surprised by her self-deprecation. "Nat, I've seen the monsters that exist out there in the dark...You're not one of them," he spoke earnestly, stepping away from his own turmoil and confronting hers. He could see the flicker of doubt in her eyes, as if she'd had this conversation before with someone else and the response was the same.

"I know we don't agree on much, and I'll be the first to admit, when I found out about…your past and what you do; like Fury, you were the last person I thought I could trust," he paused in a low breath, shifting forward as he took in her guarded exterior that shielded her raw emotions within. "But the truth is, you just see the world for the way it is and how it works…which I find a hard time doing. It's why I need you by my side, you give me a point-of-view that I can't afford to overlook."

Silence drifted between them. Natasha stared blankly at the gauze raveled over his muscular thigh, and she knew there wouldn't be a scar; just a faint bruise resulted from the burden Captain America took on alone to spare a few ungrateful lives. He was a soldier, by will and heart; sacrifice was necessary to achieve victory.

Feeling the torrents of malice and rage pulse in her, Natasha took an involuntary step back, straying from the light and sinking back into the darkness. _'There is no room for love—attachments. What you seek will never exist in the shadows.'_

Desperation was clawing against her heart as vehement impulses retook possession of her trained mind, the dominating threads of lust recalled the Black Widow to seize control; to devour the unrestrained energy of the Alpha serum fused in his veins and to claim his unyielding power as hers. It was close to gain, but she fought against those potent incitements and turned away before doing something regrettable.

 _Run..Never look back...Run._

After a moment fighting against the available options, Natasha found herself craving for security from the ravaging, florid gales of the fiery tempest—lost and bounded, she didn't know which direction to follow, but everything seemed to fall into a distant void. Resistance kept her guarded from unmasking the true, intact existence of her heart; and she couldn't let the unadulterated reason to commit herself to him in, despite all that they've endured as partners—Avengers—she had to lock Steve out of her inexorable world.

"You're blinded by what I really see, Steve," she finally said, her low breath ghosted with a hint of rueful spite. She was on the verge of reaching a clash between dependence and sentiment—a paradox. "I know you think that I can be trusted with your secrets, but what I am," Natasha paused to recollect her unjustifiable sins, and despondently glanced down at her Widow Bite gauntlet, imaging the marred, grainy scars embedded in her wrist; remnants of an unbreakable shackle that limited her freedom.

She couldn't find her voice in those seconds of grasping onto revelation, that it was only a matter of time before her brutal training eventually would pull her back into the hellish crevasse of her ravaging demons. "What they made me into, Steve, is something that will only betray a good man if ever he turns his back against the dark."

As Steve quietly listened to her, he felt more than ready to refute her claims but he hazarded it would be nothing Natasha hadn't already heard from Clint—even Fury—in the past. Working alongside her taught him that she relied heavily on the skills she had learned from her dark past that she continued to practice in the seductive and violent game of espionage. With those skills, she believed she was molded into someone who didn't deserve an ounce of happiness or redemption. She actually believed herself to be a monster—Steve would do whatever it took to prove her wrong if her own thoughts were against her.

Sensing her about to withdraw from him, Steve reaches out and takes her hand into his, "Natasha wait," he says quietly but the firmness in his tone was not lost.

He felt a blossom in his chest as she spun her head to the side, her ringlets of shimmering scarlet bouncing over her shoulder as he was confronted with piercing teal eyes. He swallowed softly, still maintaining his grip, "We all have our dark spots…even me." He confessed somberly, "I may not know much about what the Red Room did to you in the past, but what I do know is they didn't shape you into the woman you are today; one who would willfully lay down her life to protect innocent people—even from forces that are beyond you. You're an Avenger, Natasha," Steve pressed, his strong calloused digits giving her dainty palm a gentle squeeze, "You made yourself into that, not KGB, not the Red Room. So stop convincing yourself that you're someone that doesn't deserve a measure of trust and happiness in her life."

"I wish it was that simple," she eventually returned, feeling a tad rife with bitterness when Steve pinned that truth onto her. The gravity of her disquieted words held a brush of nonchalance. She regarded him with searing glare, intensely, never faltering when the intrigued depth of his azure eyes matched hers; while she felt groundless—unsubstantial to her own right. "I-I…There are days I wish to could find another purpose in my life. That maybe I can search for answers from my past that will give me what I need to survive. More than just the missions..."

"…Yeah," Steve's dismal gaze spaced, an unforgiving void of transparent reflection that was colder than the ice he'd been buried in for decades. "I guess we're not as different as you thought," he revealed shakily, the blaze in his chest ignited and set his heart racing with paces of anticipation as the words came freely—earnest. "I've been stuck behind the shield too long I've all but convinced myself the man who once wanted a normal, quiet…romantic life…" he breathed roughly, "he never came back out of the ice."

Natasha searched his gaze; the flames of valor were becoming diminished. The indomitable, powerful and benevolent soldier was submitting himself to a void of despair. Holding her ground against the contrast of pain reflecting off his chiseled features, Natasha took a brazen step closer to him, almost breached his shadow and passively stared into the stillness of his world. His eyes held so much burden –heartache and twined grief. She didn't look away.

She was trapped under his unreadable stare; pulled into a trance as she found shades of grayish blue and flecks of gold highlighting around the depth of his pupils—almost as if she was looking into the fury of an intense, damaging storm. He wasn't Captain America, or Steven Rogers...He was someone vaguely different...scarred and bone wary from a clash of assailing emotions. She had to anchor him back. "I'm getting the feeling that this isn't just about Barnes or your busted leg holding you back, Steve?" she questioned softly, holding his leveled stare; and faintly smiled with the absence of the coldness prickling in her veins. Still, Natasha refused to disarm herself fully to him. "So tell me what's really dragging you down?"

A shuddering sigh wafted from his lips; the pain in his leg, however mentioned, had dulled to an irreverent sting as his thoughts drifted back to darker a point in history—but also the brightest point in his life where friendship and brotherhood thrived, and stood for liberty against tyranny, and a hope for love began to bloom. His parted lips lingered open but his words failed him. Instinct told him to evade her inquiry, to shutter away his darkest thoughts and regrets that prodded him with each day he walked into the field with his shield at ready. But the need to unburden himself never felt stronger than it did now, especially as he lay fractured and vulnerable…beneath those wide glistening teal irises searching for something within his own to cling herself to …

Exhaling softly, Steve's blue eyes fleetingly became distant, "Since I woke up, it's been easy to fall back into the swing of things as a soldier—a leader. Probably because it's all I have left that has been so familiar to me from back in my own time," he said, his tone infinitely remorseful, "I'd be lying if I said this was the ideal life I had planned when the war—the mission—was over..." he paused, the phantom pain of his past was as devastating as an unhealed wound, "I had hopes…dreams…and someone I wanted to share them all with, " his eyes watered and a broken smile formed across his lips, its signature both familiar and crushing to Natasha who had worn it herself in the past due to a familiar party.

The only thing worse than an unreciprocated love was an unfulfilled one; its grip of despair clutched so tightly from within, breathing—living—felt impossible if not undesirable. "I learned the hard way that life is full of curve balls and that some people are just meant to keep on swinging. Even if the enemies change, the cause to keep on fighting remains the same. There will always be a new mission to take on."He shrugged his tone bittersweet and filled with immeasurably exhaustion.

"As much as I tried to convince myself that I was at home here…it's not what I truly wanted. It took a genocidal robot to make me face hard truths; that the mission is all I've been living for now," he snorted as the ironic realization came to him. "Family and stability felt beyond reach; friends and partners fall and I can't save them. Maybe being Captain America is all I deserve now."

A guise of indifference stifled over Natasha's face, she locked a studious glare onto him; eluding the grainy truth seeping from his resolve. Granted, she felt tension assailing with every kinked breath that emptied from her lungs. She was expecting a genuine answer that carried no unfurling evidence of his regrets, but he seemed unwilling to place his damaged heart into her hands.

For a moment it felt like a solid slab of ice obstructed them from sharing an unfeigned connection.

Finally, after critical thinking for the most part, Natasha braved another cautious step, and lightly caressed her fingertips over his rough knuckles to give him some reassurance that she understood his sacrifices of permitting himself to avoid the luxuries of having a rewarding life without the echoes of war recalling him to the front lines.

"Captain America is just another identity that only defines a piece of who you've chosen to lead the missions..." There was a pitch sentiment in her low voice. "Not your life, Steve." She reminded him, ingraining a new meaning of hope into the rifts of his indefinite thoughts.

Despite the mask of detachment Natasha expertly wore, Steve was startled by the pools of understanding swirling in her blue-green depths. It was both humbling and genuine. The earnestness of his returned gaze was challenged by the barrier of distrust he'd long erected since entering her dark and complex world; a world where lies and total control were tools used to protect the greater good. But that was not all he found in those timid moments such as this. There was also stability and restored acceptance; a connection that gave him newfound life and perspective that he dared to believe he could allow himself to trust her—with everything.

"I'd never wish this life—this responsibility—on anyone," he shrugged, doing his utmost to focus on the flow of his words and not on the tendrils of electricity moving up his arm, triggered from her simplest of touches. "It's hard to believe that a world that is so different now, still needs someone like Captain America… I can't just walk away from that…just like I can't expect anyone to take up this shield for me one day. It's a lonely road," he breathed, unconsciously his long calloused digits began to intertwine with her own. There was a sure comfort and assurance in it; he made no effort to withdraw.

"You're not alone," Natasha declared with ease in her voice, almost sounding innocuous. "Remember you're an Avenger...a captain who always risks his life, even for those who don't deserve it. There is no red in your ledger, and if there is between the fine lines, than it's yours, Steve."

Her gaze shifted from the pool of his eyes to the smooth arch of his lips; she blinked and unclasped her hand from his interlocking words. It was like an ignition of pain that soon diminished in the foreign weaves of desperation as she fought to not claim his lips once again in a moment of fighting against her impulses.

Memories recalled her back, but the circumstances of her actions kept her trapped. Finally, she asked the question that would provoke a hurtful response from his resisting guilt. "If you could go back would you runaway with Peggy Carter?"

Steve blinked, breaking contact with the storm between their eyes, but somehow the intensity remained. The flow of his discontent percolated from within—shifting from the harrowing sting that resulted from his greatest failure, to the hallowed emptiness that was created from a most painful loss—an unfulfilled dream to shed all inhibitions that came with his modest nature, and to embrace the possibility of love, and the warm thrill of a good dance—all lost to the ravages of time.

A meek smile, sad in its form, found its way across his lips—a resonance lingered sparked only by the powerful memory of Peggy's lips finding his in that final moment before he flew away to his destiny.

Remorse gnawed at him every day for many of things; one of which his inability to find an answer to that very question Natasha asked him.

His turmoil within reflected outward as he gently shook his head in response, indicating his uncertainty. While Steve carried the weight and responsibility of a soldier, he was still a man inside; a man who never had the chance to fully give away his heart—and now found it vulnerable and empty.

"Peggy would have wanted me to keep fighting… But it's all I've been doing. I've lost touch with the world around me, the people closest to me…" he felt his heart swell—almost painfully—upon their intended destination, "its time I start living for something else…" He cautiously lifted his stare; the softness in Natasha's features sparked a pleasant shiver down his back like a lightning rod, sending his heart aflutter.

"Well, the question is Steve, who do you really want to be?" Natasha whispered, in a low pitch. "You've been Captain America for a long time, allowing faults to control you and living under the shield. I think you're holding back. Peggy wrote you letters, so maybe you should read a few...They might have some answers."

"…There isn't a simple answer to that question," he confessed surely, a worn look contorting his features, "often times I look in the mirror…and all I can see are the scars that run deeper than what words can tell. There isn't a day that goes where I wish I could be more than the soldier everyone sees me as. But the truth is I wouldn't know how. Sometimes I wonder how I can ever go back to being that man Peggy Carter fell in love with…" The constriction in his chest forced his words to pause in his throat, yet despite that, the flow of which he divulged them felt much smoother and sure than they did only moments before—as though a light had been glimpsed at the end of a dark tunnel that provided him a clear path forward.

A wistful sigh brushed past his lips, the thump of his once racing heartbeat began a steady march in his chest. "As for who I want to be… I want to be that man who was never afraid to trust a fellow soldier—" With heavy focus, the stormy azure of his blue orbs looked up and gazed unflinchingly—earnestly—into the teal waters, "who wasn't afraid to go beyond the front lines and let his heart guide him to what mattered most." He issued in a soft tone, his firm calloused digits covering her dainty hand, giving it a gentle reassuring squeeze.

No words escaped from her lips, as Natasha felt torrents of the serum match the paces of her rapid pulse, a rough graze of his palm overlapped her knuckles with soothing heat; and she was being anchored back into the silent calmness of his stoic gaze, staring in the flares of azure engulfed by the darkness of a feverish storm electrifying in depth of his eyes. Her body relished the surging coils of heat emanating off his solid chest, merging into her bones.

The iciness of her trepidation dissolved with the thrum of his enhanced strength. It felt so utterly wrong to become so unexpectedly close, that she welcomed numbness back into her veins. With a warranted automatic response, she had angled her lithe frame; adjoining against the hard ridges of his flexing torso. The feeling of his body caving around her was everything she latently wanted, _everything_ she tried to accept, but it didn't last as the unforgiving vestiges of the Red Room haunted her; forcing her body to tilt back to the door.

Slowly, Natasha was becoming a tantalized victim of her own granted desires, unfocused in a delirious stasis and protected by the unbreakable secured enclasp of Captain America. Somehow the mending, real bond fused between them was something she had never expected to feel before, not with her beloved Alexei or the hollow menacing Winter Soldier, or even most recently; the timid and elusive Dr. Banner.

All those shared moments she had lived with two of those men, were stolen when masses of red forced her to drown in the empty fathoms of the Lukin's ruthless prison, where the butchers had carved out her humanity. And the moments shared with other; a mere desperate attempt to run away from this dangerous life by pursuing something that wasn't really there—that wasn't real.

She had paid for her sins, extracting the darkness, and relighting a new purpose that defined the real Natalia Romanova, not the Black Widow. Wearing the mantles of SHIELD and the Avengers', inspired Natasha to prove only to her doubting self that she had a chance to receive redemption—to become free from the invisible shackles that had threatened to drag her back into the shadows.

"Why did you choose to become a different man, Steve?" She eventually deflected those confessed words back at him. With a natural arch of her eyebrow, she pried malevolently deeper, giving him no chance to breathe. "Something tells me that you're searching for a life without the shield?"

Hearing the earnestness yet slight tease in Natasha's question, Steve's gloomy countenance smoothed out into something more wistful, more content and searching. The flickers of disquiet ebbed away and in its place was a look of utter sincerity that before had been remorseful but now full of poise and strength as he felt her return the squeeze to his hand—warm and supportive, reminding him that despite the darker and complex world they now lived in—he wasn't alone.

"Only if I found the right partner," he admitted with his deep baritone, eyes continuing to bore into hers. "I may be a soldier, but I was a normal man before I ever picked up the shield, Nat. I'm still a man now; one who has fallen out of touch with the world and who now, more than ever, just wishes he could find that life away from war…"

Steve was vaguely aware of the warmth that enveloped him from head to toe—it felt as pleasant as the rays of a rising sun upon his skin after a long cold night. He couldn't describe the force that drew him ever so closer to Natasha, his eyes shifting intensely between the entrancing depth of her emerald orbs, to the lush fullness of her slightly parted lips. Like a moth to the flame, he felt beckoned but wary, keeping a safe distance should the flame lash out.

He had never felt so bold before.

"Well, you seem like you've got what you want all figured out," Natasha pulled her lips into a faint smile, holding her resolve to his fierce, determined azure hues that possessed reserves of virtue. She detected his potent sense of urgency that betrayed his hesitance, edging his approach to embrace her in this intense moment. She clung to it; her marred and bleeding heart never required much, remitted aspirations as desire continued to stab away at her, and then granted her a conclusion that she equal...felt.

She couldn't admit that her breath seemed to decease in her chest whenever he stood at her side. Accepting the very handsome and virtuous captain as her anchor, she had found restored purpose, changing her tactics of survival, and tearing down the marble walls that had offered her isolation in the darkness of her irrefutable past experiences.

She had to divulge that in truth, she wanted to feel something more than repentance. Right now, she found herself a captive against the heat wavering off his muscled body, lulling her to accept the closeness as she felt the ravenous pulse of his heart. Everything became uncertain, and with a graceful sway of her hips, she was pulled into his arms.

Steve didn't say anything, his words were stuck in his throat, afraid they might betray the truer depth of his latent feelings that until now he had suppressed—he could only show them.

The walls of his restraint had crumbled and Steve allowed the flood to come through, guiding his actions as fluidly as water as he dared to take the plunge. Natasha fit so perfectly against his broad torso, her dainty porcelain digits were a welcome coolness against the feverish warmth emanating from his exposed flesh. He could feel her involuntarily shiver in his embrace—caught off guard by the forwardness of his actions, but also captivated by the intensity and desire swirling in the blue depths of eyes.

For a moment they merely stared deeply into one another, searching, exploring—understanding what this moment was and what it meant; Steve's gaze fell away from the wideness of her eyes, to the fullness of her lips, and like a magnet, he was drawn intimately closer.

The rich floral scent of her scarlet red locks hit him with a rush of intoxication; he could focus on little else except the ever decreasing distance between their lips. Her breath brushing against his cheek sent his heart hammering wildly in his chest and his skin tingled with electricity as the gap finally closed, and her blissful touch caused his spirit to soar. Natasha's kiss—her touch–was sweeter and more entrancing than he recalled. Her breath was cool and minty—like a Russian winter, he was mesmerized and entranced by her.

The way he stared into her eyes, reflective intensity and driven passion, she felt gravity lull her a breath closer, the expanse of her coaxing lips made feverish contact against the edge of his jaw; and Natasha felt her unhurried pulse dismiss all expected urges to run. At first, it was irrational for her to surrender, but as the heady scent of him awoke all dormant senses, she was immobilized.

When her lithe body was locked into the security of his arms, her breasts joined into the hard bulk that formed his pectorals and the utter sense of valid acceptance started reaching an unrestrained level of dominance. She could barely grasp onto thought...could barely conceive the indecisive words in the intolerable moment as she felt his biceps and deltoids flex with coiling tension against her exposed skin. Nothing could distance her from him; with an automatic response her arms enclosed around his torso. Friction sparked as she relished the feel of him, wanting to melt into the solid firm muscles that clenched against her body...It was calming, almost a balm to her; undeniable and constant that it couldn't recede.

Natasha wanted relief against the trauma and the nightmares of her degraded past; to allow her heart to evolve as she yearned and even had envision about this moment, since she had tasted his soft lips colliding with hers on the mall escalator. Now this was her chance, he was here with her, holding and protecting her from the shadows, and she was ready to reciprocate.

With an effective sway of her curves, Natasha encouraged his moral limits to ease as his guarded reservations waged a war with restrained hesitance because of the lifetime promise he made to Peggy, it was still inscribed over his heart: deep and unfading.

"Steve..." she beckoned in a breathless whisper, permitting him purchase of her mouth, while she fought against an untamed onslaught of torrential desires that gripped her to the bone; exceeding the serum's vigorous surges that pulsed against her statuesque neck. His large hands splayed through masses of disheveled copper ringlets that obscured her alabaster skin; roaming over her shoulders, carefully dousing the ravenous possession of his enhanced strength at the same time.

"I've wanted to do that for awhile now," Steve confessed, equally as breathless as her. This surge of liquid fire in his veins made him feel something he hadn't felt in so long: desire, warmth…life, and the potential for so much more. He welcomed it as much as he wanted it. The boldness of his actions wasn't lost on him, but they did however surprise him. Perhaps this was why he felt so drawn to her; Natasha—The Black Widow—was capable of making him feel things he never thought himself capable of again.

With Natasha, he felt he had found his second chance—more than that—he felt he had found a path away from the shield. "I thought I could shut it all out, Natasha…The way I feel about you. I thought that there was only the next mission and the one after that, but the truth of the matter is; I always had another mission before I ever became Captain America:…Finding that right dance partner."

Natasha felt her teeth absently scrape over her lower lip, focusing on some resemblance glinting in his blue eyes and she wondered if his honest words meant the valid truth. To her, it was only a fraction of acceptance that reached the guarded exterior of her heart.

As the air between them intensified, she horded those urges of equal attachment, and allowed her thoughts to drift. She wanted to forget it about the mission now; remain in the wrapped teeming warmth of his sinewy arms and feel nothing except the breathy hotness of his plush lips caressing over her neck, but she had a job to finish.

The Black Widow was the second in command of the New Avengers; and Natasha couldn't leave the infancy of the new recruits to fend on their own. _A few more seconds wouldn't hurt..._ she thought, feeling dominance return to her, processing the raw and unexpected outcomes of her justified choice to stay with him until she was called out by her partner.

She tried to extract her mind from the moments ahead. She wanted to savor the seconds, and just feel his solid muscles yield to her ravening desires. With a small part of her lips, and one certain reason, she endeavored to wove heat over his smooth, broaden jaw. She was closer than before to him, almost to a point of stealing his breath. "Do you want to know something?" she murmured lowly. "I feel the same way that you do, well except I'm not a soldier, just a spy who always covers up her tracks."

At this, a small smile formed across his lips—this time genuine; far from the sad and grim edge of despair he had shown when she first set foot inside his room. It was a welcoming sight. "Spy or not, soldier or not, it doesn't change what I feel," he gazed at his hands as they unconsciously caressed smooth and soothing circles on the sides of her arms. It felt so natural to him. So…right. Reminded of his manners, he gently stopped his ministrations but the warmness in his features remained in place, leaving no question as to whether he held any remorse for his actions.

"There's a lot I want to say to you, Natasha," he conceded, the fading lax in his tone reminding them both of the short amount of time left before duty would call for them to separate for the time being. "but that can wait until you get back..." Steve spoke hesitantly. He wasn't ready to let this moment completely slip away; not just yet. Not when he finally had her in his arms in a way he wasn't entirely sure he wanted or needed until now. _You're still a normal man, Rogers…You just didn't realize how much of one._ His glistening azure orbs flicked from her eyes and back to the plump arch of her full lips. He felt his heart swell in his chest; he cautiously leaned half-way, "…Right now, however, I'd like to take another liberty if I may?" He asked demurely, ever the gentleman he was born and raised as.

A clash of emotions grew into a storm inside her. There was nothing between them, no more raw and unresolved tension that forced her to remain guarded towards certain exceptions of compromising risk. As she felt the shallow rise of his chest, in the awake of definition of his sculpted muscles flexing underneath the possessive grip of her fingertips, Natasha drifted into a fevered elation; she couldn't move. He stood against her, solid and trusting.

When his large hand trailed warmth over her waist, the friction of penetrating heart made her become unbalanced, it wasn't something she had expected to feel. Frozen in the moment; Natasha tensed when the strong vibrations of his heartbeat pounded against her chest. He secured her body fully against his well-defined torso—holding her weight fluidly into a graceful pose. So gentle and endearing. The sharp curve of his jagged cheek glided over her copper strands, and the fullness of his lips delivered tentative warmth as she finally reached for his hand, without the impulse to run. With a pulse of genuine acceptance, she allowed the lightest grace of her fingers to slip over the rough skin of his knuckles.

Gravity had eased over her as she leaned inward, effortlessly, when the swell of his mouth caressed over her cold, waxen skin. In the contrast of his shadow, Natasha angled her head into the hard expanse of his pectorals. With an affectionate brush over his throat, her lips touched his skin. A hint of salt melted against her tongue. It was the purest taste, that sparked so many desires that she could barely restrain. She felt the relentless ache of detachment claim her once again, but it didn't last long enough for her thoughts to preserve it. She was falling deeper into his embrace, assuming that he would finally take the lead; maybe a little coaxing would give him the admission to take her breath away. "Go for it, soldier," she enticed, with a raspy order.

As a soldier, Steve had taken many orders in his lifetime, and this was one he didn't need repeated twice. His lips found hers fluidly; slow, tentative, they brushed a trail of warm wetness in their wake. For a moment, they held together close, seeking a measure of reassurance to the outpour of emotion and vulnerability in their passionate exchange. It felt overwhelming true and liberating. Steve felt her shift closer as their lips overlapped one another's; drinking in the soft exhalations and the surge of requited devotion that words could not fully express in this moment. Unconsciously, his large rugged hands held her close, framing her angelic face with adoring reverence before they became lost in the sea of silky red curls.

The thin arch of his upper lip fell perfectly—easily—between the full lush of her ruby shaped blades; tendrils of electricity followed in their wake. She quivered lightly in his embrace, and for this blissful moment Steve felt alive, and every bit as the 31 year old man he actually—biologically—was. A far cry from the guilt-ridden mess he was moments before. It was a testament to the affect Natasha had on him; his trepidation—his remorse—had extended beyond his inability to save Bucky, but also to find a life, a purpose beyond the bitter loneliness of life as a symbol—as Captain America. Natasha helped him come to terms with that, and now to find a way forward.

As her possessive fingers threaded into his disheveled blonde tresses; Natasha fought to regain a sense of control against the rawness of the connection, severing her lips as his muscles pulsed against the litheness of her body. It was a defining moment of her life; feeling the wanted and undeniable need of a soldier who her rational logic that had once distanced her from the core of their friendship.

All the experiences the Widow had endured became dismantled when she relished the unfettered touch of his hand splaying over her waist, the interlock of their fitted bodies. Natasha closed her eyes tighter, her nerves igniting as the swell of his lips melted; falling deeper into a heady kiss—no reservations, just breath and ravenous heat. _'Glorious,'_ that was only conceived word in her sated thoughts. When she gained full possession of the ablaze of his lips, she kissed him, driving everything she had to give into his mouth.

As she tasted his lips moving in sync with hers, their rhythm intensified; she wanted to stay—she needed to stay. Nothing else mattered. It was just him and her, both equally outmatched by insatiable ravished desire. The Black Widow had claimed him—Captain America—as her heart submitted to his love; her heart swelled warmly at the thought.

After dousing out the fire in her lungs, Natasha broke away with a slow pulse of wet heat slathering over the full expanse of his devoured lips, panting breathless. She felt the arch of his upper lip tentatively curl up as their mouths loosened and their heart beats steadied. One more kiss lingered with solidifying compression, stroking her flushed skin adoringly. Then, it all came to a halt by a slow rapping against his door.

"Nat, we're ready to take off," came the gravelly, elusive voice of the archer—also her best friend. When his words registered, Natasha spun around, and leveled her stare at Clint, who was leaning against the door, fully garbed in his uniform with his arrow quiver latched onto his back. A small hint of a smile crept over his lips, as he watched Steve detach from her in the instant his presence was known. "Everyone's settled in the jet...but if you want to take a few more..."

"I'm ready," Natasha shot back evenly, blood rushing through her veins. Adrenaline had fused. "Wait for me out there." Clint nodded taking the hint that was evident in her fierce tone, and then he slipped back into the shadows of the hall—his smile stretching to a grin. Once they were alone, Natasha smoothed her palm over Steve's jaw, and held his angular face, her fingers caressed over the feverish surface of his cheek and she stared into his fathomless azure eyes, and held his stern, loving gaze.

"Don't go anywhere," she said, her tone serious as she gently brushed her fingertips across his forgotten injury, though Steve had a feeling her words held a deeper meaning than that as he saw the concern not just for his well-being, but the fear of abandonment in her eyes.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he reassured her easily, pleased to see her guarded exterior become flooded with relief. "Be careful out there, Natasha," Steve advised in a murmur, weighted concern welled in the intense stillness of his mirrored eyes. Breaths deepened, as he felt the unrestrained pull of gravity leading his mouth back to her lips. He was aware that the Avengers' second-in-command was needed; the time he shared with her gave him enough strength to carry on his own mission with newfound confidence within himself.

He knew that Bucky needed to be found just as he knew Peggy needed him to reside at her bed side tonight, more than ever. But Steve also knew that he had two strong women in his life, Agent Carter was his guiding compass against the storms of the past, and Natasha was the fire that thawed out the ice covering his shielded heart.

Before she stepped out of his room, Natasha traced a brush of heat over his lips, kissing him with a simple chaste of assurance. "Don't worry, I know how to dance, Cap," she whispered against Steve's jaw, smirking just as she receded back into the darkness.

A confident smile twitched over his lips. She made him feel alive. He wasn't sure how to proceed in his next step, but he knew that if he fell—Natasha would be there at his side to pick him back up; he felt the embers of her love tingle through every nerve of his body, dissolving the deep, and unhealed scars, before he picked up the shield.

 **{The End}**


End file.
